[JPKab]

I'm surprised that people still view Google as a cool place to work.

It seems to me that ship sailed years ago. They are a giant corporation reliant on one monopoly product to fund everything else.

Employees usually are stuck with some tiny part of a component in a system. The office perks are nice, but are you really going to do interesting work there anymore?

[hodgesrm]

Google has produced some amazing software and continues to do so. I work with Kubernetes and Angular 2, both of which originated there. The quality of design, implementation, and documentation is a model for accomplishment in computer science. As an engineer it's hard not to envy the folks that got to work on those projects.

So...I think it really depends where you work. That's true of all big companies as far as I can tell.

[jameskegel]

Kubernetes is the product I’d mention, if I were making this comparison.

[dmihal]

The free food & other perks will keep their "cool" image going for a while. But it's certainly dipping.

[eloisant]

They were the first to do it in the 2000's, but now isn't every SV company doing that already?

[astrange]

Apple doesn't do free food. The Steve quote is "if you can't afford it, you should ask for a raise".